Please do not enter our challenge using Sherri Baldy images. We do not allow these images to be used in projects by our DT for this blog so ask that you do not enter using her images. Entries that do so will be removed. Thanks.

I'm a mother of 2 small precious people & a part-time worker. I started scrapbooking in 2005. I moved onto digital scrapbooking when my daughter was born in 2007 (& still do!) as it was easier, quicker and both grandparents wanted scrap pages too so it was easier to do one page digitally & email it to everyone.

I needed to use my paper up so I started playing at card making. I had always admired all those beautiful coloured images in card magazines (Magnolia, La La Land, CC Designs etc) so I bought a few stamps & used my kids pencils to start with. Pencils just didn't have the wow factor I was after so I decided to pick up my first Copic in 2011 after visiting a craft fair. Then my sister-in-law introduced me to the world of online card making challenges late in 2013, so I started my blog then & have not looked back!Alicia's Blog - MaxiBelleStudio.blogspot.com

My name is Karen Oliver and I live on the outskirts of Auckland.

I am married to Dave and have 15 year old twins Nick and Abbey.

I work at a local primary school teaching students who have English as a second language.

I have been cutting things up for as long as I can remember. I have tried all manner of crafts from embroidery to cake decorating and everything in between. In more recent years I started playing with paper and haven’t stopped since.

I love cute and layers and am drawn to the shabby hues.

Its an absolute pleasure and privilege to be part of the Southern Girls Challenge Team.

Hi my name is Alethea, I am a single mother of two boys and I am from Sunbury, Melbourne, Australia. Most of my life I have dabbled in crafty stuff (cross stitch mainly) But while pregnant with my second son I decided to start card making. It started off with just a few stamps some pencils and card stock but now have a cupboard with a couple of thousand dollars worth of crafty goodies... I do like to do OTP stuff but never seem to find the time now that I am working so cards it is.. Sometimes they are CAS and other times I will add loads of embellishments. But either way I usually like what I make. Not much else to say...

I live a simple life and always see the good in people and most of the time

Hi there, I'm Wendy, Wends to my friends, I am known in blogland by the
handle 'Crafty Kiwi Mama', which hints at my homeland, New Zealand. I've always been

crafty and I've always loved paper craft. When I was newly married, I started making my own Christmas cards and gift cards for friends. I used to find gorgeous
images from magazines, cut them out, paste them on a card and using a gold or silver pen, ink a border around it.

I like to think I've grown a little bit in my card designs since then!

My creative adventures include lots of kids creativity since having my two kiddos.

My hubby helped me reconnect with my creativity after my kiddies were born by encouraging
me to start blogging. I never even knew blogging existed before this! What an

amazing world opened up for me and I haven't looked back since.

I have served on 5 design teams and remain on 3 currently. I love being part of the
Southern Girls design team and this is a crafty adventure I hope will last a few years yet!

We have some super fun challenges lined up this year and some amazing sponsors,
so come join us and be part of the Southern Girls crafty adventures.

Hi There, my name is Vidya and I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of such a
talented team of Southern Girls. I live in bright sunny Brisbane in Australia.
I am happily married to a wonderful man named Kaustubh for 3 years.
I love paper crafting since like forever but got passionate about techniques and skills
around 8 years ago. It started off as a hobby and then the journey took me to taking projects
and tutoring different crafting techniques. I generally love making albums, cards, scrapbooking
and making art journals and I always say a big YES to trying something new.
My style varies from subtle to bold and I believe

"Imagination and Learning is Limitless"

I am excited to start this new crafting adventure with the Southern Girls team and
I really look forward to creating something inspiring for you all.

Wednesday, 30 December 2015

It's time to announce
the lucky winners and Top 5
from our 'A Bit Of What You Fancy' Challenge
Our Final Challenge of 2015

I hope you've all had a truly wonderful Christmas
Did you get any crafty goodies?

We wish you a fantastic New Year
and we are looking forward to sharing our
crafty adventures with you in 2016

Now onto our final Winner's Circle Post for 2015

We were fortunate to have two amazing sponsors for this challenge
So that means two winners!

Our first lucky winner this challenge ~ Number 14

Woohoo - this week it's you Nancy

This was Nancy's fab' entry

Winning an Awesome Prize fromOur Fabulous First Sponsor

Our second lucky winner this challenge ~ Number 28

Woohoo - this week it's you Cathie

This was Cathie's sweet entry

Winning an Awesome Prize fromOur Fabulous Second Sponsor

Congratulations Nancy & Cathie

Please take your

Winners badge from above
and email Tracy at

tracy(dot)rich(at)xtra(dot)co(dot)nz

to claim your prize.

Now onto our

Did you know, that all the Southern Girls DT vote on our Top 5?
That's why it takes a little longer to post our Winners
But it means that the cards shown here
were the best loved by ALL the DT
So that's a bit extra special

Ladies, Come On DownTo The Winner's Circle

Tanvi took our breaths away with this stunning altered bottle

Pamellia had us mesmerised with this beautiful Christmas tag

Marilyn made us all smile over this utterly fabulous box frame design

Karasiowa did it again - we were all swooning over this utterly stunning album

Last but by no means least,

Yogi utterly nailed it with this beautiful Christmas candle

Ladies your creations are wonderful, creative,
original and perfect for our 'A Bit Of What You Fancy' challenge
We honour your crafty mojo

Welcome to the Southern Girls Winners Circle

Please take your Top 5 badge
and wear it on your blog with pride

Thank you to all who have played along with the Southern Girls this year
We have some utterly fabulous sponsors lined up for the New Year
and we're looking forward to welcoming all our regular players
back again in 2016 and hopefully some new fans too

Friday, 25 December 2015

Have you ever thought it would be awesome to be part of the Design Team at SGC?

Do you love creating with paper?Do you want to be part of a friendly easy going team of crafters?

If you have answered yes to the questions above we want to hear from you!

We are looking for some fresh faces on our DT due to some of our ladies stepping down at the end of this year.

The term would start in January/February depending on your commitments.

The team is split into 2 groups which means 1 project per month.If you choose to make a card you will usually be provided a digi image from our sponsor to use.We welcome scrapbookers, cardmakers, altered artists, mixed media, pocket scrapbookers, art journalers, in fact all types of papercrafting.

We correspond on facebook so you would need to have a facebook account and a blog or public facebook account which you can post the challenges and your projects to.

If you would like to apply to be an SGC lovely please email us a couple of samples of your work, tell us a bit about yourself and please include your blog link to

southerngirlschallenges@gmail.com

We look forward to hearing from you and the call will finish when we have found our new members,

We were fortunate to have two amazing sponsors for this challenge
So that means two winners!

Our first lucky winner this challenge ~ Number 42

Woohoo - this week it's you Katrina

This was Katrina's sweet entry
(Don't you just love the colour combo?!)

Winning an Awesome Prize fromOur Fabulous First Sponsor

Our second lucky winner this challenge ~ Number 33

Woohoo - this week it's you Eemeli

This was Eemeli's sweet entry
(Don't you just love the sweet image?!)

Winning an Awesome Prize fromOur Fabulous Second Sponsor

Congratulations Katrina & Eemeli

Please take your

Winners badge from above
and email Tracy at

tracy(dot)rich(at)xtra(dot)co(dot)nz

to claim your prize.

Now onto our

Did you know, that all the Southern Girls DT vote on our Top 5?
That's why it takes a little longer to post our Winners
But it means that the cards shown here
were the best loved by ALL the DT
So that's a bit extra special

Ladies, Come On DownTo The Winner's Circle

Elaine wowed the whole DT with this stunning Advent creation

Donna had us oohing and ahhing over this sweet card

Sandy had us all swooning over this utterly fabulous scrapbook layout

Jay bowled us over with this sweet shabby chic 'Tilda' card

Karasiowa had us all swooning over this utterly stunning shabby chic card

Welcome to the Southern Girls Winners Circle

Please take your Top 5 badge
and wear it on your blog with pride

Thank you for playing along with the Southern Girls
Still a few days left to get your entry in for our final challenge of the year

Please make a note of our rules folks when entering the challenge
We still had several 'multiple' entries in this last challenge
Please enter ONCE only in a Southern Girls challenge
You will only be eligible for the prize
if you follow the challenge rules

Thursday, 3 December 2015

Welcome to our last challenge for the year here at SGC.
We have a REALLY super easy one for you to wrap things up for the year and we can't wait to see you awesome entries for this one.

REMEMBER OUR DT CALL IS STILL OPEN,
if you are from Australia or NZ and love to craft with paper we would love to hear from you :)

Soooooo, without further ado the last challenge is.......

Use something you love :)
Yep whether it is a technique, an embellishment, a stamp or a colour, we don't care we just want to see it.
Make sure and state in either in your post or next to your link what it is that you love and you could be in to win a fabby voucher from one of these awesome sponsors.....

And here are the DT lovelies with their inspiration projects for you.....

ONE ENTRY PER PERSON PLEASECOMBINED WITH MAXIMUM OF 9 OTHER CHALLENGESENSURE YOU LINK BACK TO SOUTHERN GIRLS IN YOUR BLOG POST. LINK TO YOUR POST NOT YOUR BLOG, IF YOU ARE GOING TO BACK LINK MAKE SURE IT IS IN THE SAME WEEK THAT OUR CHALLENGE WENT LIVE. NO SHERRI BALDY OR SCRAPBOOK SOCIETY IMAGES PLEASE. IF YOU ARE BASED IN NZ OR AUSSIE PLEASE PUT EITHER NZ OR AUS AFTER YOUR ENTRY.

This was Marilyn's sweet entry
(Don't you just love the warm Java tones in this one?!)

Winning an Awesome Prize fromOur Fabulous Sponsor

Congratulations Marilyn

Please take your

Winners badge from above
and email Tracy at

tracy(dot)rich(at)xtra(dot)co(dot)nz

to claim your prize.

Now onto our

Did you know, that all the Southern Girls DT vote on our Top 5?
That's why it takes a little longer to post our Winners
But it means that the cards shown here
were the best loved by ALL the DT
So that's a bit extra special

Our DT had such a tough time narrowing down the Top 5
this week, that we've decided to make it a Top 6
Congratulations to you all

Ladies, Come On DownTo The Winner's Circle

Suzi wowed the whole DT with this wonderful gift bag duo

Jennifer had us oohing and ahhing over this fabulous Advent Calendar

Tammy made us all swoon over this sweet 'Lacy Sunshine' Christmas card

Karrie had us all swooning over this utterly fabulous scrapbook layout

Norma bowled us over with this fabulous card and treat box duo

Ladies your creations are wonderful, creative,
original and perfect for our 'Stick Together' challenge
which celebrated the use of twine, tape & ribbon
We honour your crafty mojo

Welcome to the Southern Girls Winners Circle

Please take your Top 5 badge
and wear it on your blog with pride

Thank you for playing along with the Southern Girls
Check back next Thursday for our latest challenge
Still a few days left to get your entry in for the current challenge too

Please make a note of our rules folks when entering the challenge
We still had several 'multiple' entries in this last challenge
Please enter ONCE only in a Southern Girls challenge
You will only be eligible for the prize
if you follow the challenge rules

ONE ENTRY PER PERSON PLEASECOMBINED WITH MAXIMUM OF 9 OTHER CHALLENGESENSURE YOU LINK BACK TO SOUTHERN GIRLS IN YOUR BLOG POST. LINK TO YOUR POST NOT YOUR BLOG, IF YOU ARE GOING TO BACK LINK MAKE SURE IT IS IN THE SAME WEEK THAT OUR CHALLENGE WENT LIVE. NO SHERRI BALDY OR SCRAPBOOK SOCIETY IMAGES PLEASE. IF YOU ARE BASED IN NZ OR AUSSIE PLEASE PUT EITHER NZ OR AUS AFTER YOUR ENTRY.

Welcome to Southern Girls Challenge,The challenges will be posted 3 weekly on a Thursday and are open to crafters worldwide. They close at 12.01 pm on the Tuesday of the second week.Each week there will be 2 prizes, one for Australian and New Zealand entries and another for entrants from the rest of the world.Only 3 entries per person on regular challenges and 1 on Anything Goes Challenges.Please when you add your link if you are from NZ or Australia then add AUS or NZ after your name.Please link using your post link not your blog link and link back to us in your post.

Please enter in no more than 9 OTHER challenges. Hope you have loads of fun playing along. If you do not have a blog you can email us HEREChallenges are open to ALL PAPERCRAFTERS! As long as your entry fits the challenge criteria YOU ARE IN! The idea is to have fun and play along, the bonus is the prizes.Prize winners are chosen by Random.Org and the top 3 or 5 are chosen by the DT.

This Challenge blog is run by Tracy Jackson and Louise Forsyth. If you would like to contact us you can emailing us at...